The traditional game of chess has existed for centuries and continues to be popular for many reasons including its strategic complexity which can grow with a player's experience level. However, some aspects of traditional chess can be criticized.
For example, the start of the game can often be slow to develop and be perceived as dull to some players who do not invoke opening play strategies, but merely step through a series of choreographed moves in order to get their pieces into playing position.
The movement of some pieces can be confusing to the novice player. For example, the pawn piece has four different sets of moves available. Along with regular pawn movements, the pawn has different moves available for 1st moves, different moves for capturing an opponent's piece, and different moves for when a pawns forward path is obstructed. This requires a player to learn and use four different move sets for a single piece, as well as the conditions that cause them. Further, the Empassant rule regarding pawn moves makes grasping the game even more difficult.
In addition, the rules of pawn movement do not enable restructuring. In other words, pawns are generally unable to restructure once they have come out of formation. Pawns are restricted from moving forward-left or forward-right, except when performing a capture. This potentially detracts from the strategy of being able to reform them. Once Pawns are out of formation, the only way they can be reformed is by capturing an opponent's piece.
A pawn can be redeemed for any major piece, but they are almost always redeemed for additional queens. Allowing multiple queens on the board can unduly upset the balance of power too early in the game. Also, it requires the use of additional queen pieces, or token pieces.
As for the other pieces, the movement of the knight piece can be very complex and difficult to learn for novice players. Even for seasoned players, the available moves for the knight can be difficult to visualize. The bishop piece only has access to one half the spaces on the board, limiting the versatility of the piece.
The end game of chess can be tedious. Many games of Chess slowly wind down with one major piece and a king slowly stepping an opponent's lone king into a corner to be checkmated.
Traditional chess is prone to potentially dissatisfying tie games. Unless a player has a pawn, rook, or queen remaining, there is no way to force a checkmate upon an opponent. When a lone king is not in check, but cannot move, this is considered a stalemate or tie.
Several variations of chess have been proposed. Legan Chess is a chess variant created by L. Legan in 1913. It differs from traditional chess by the position of the board, starting position of the pieces, and pawn movements. A game having hexagonally adjacent spaces was developed by Wladyslaw Glinski in Poland in 1936. Both of these games closely mimic the play of traditional chess and thus include some of the above identified criticisms.
Other variations have been proposed as disclosed in: Beaman, U.S. Pat. No. 1,704,819; Welch, U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,856; Hale et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,778,065; Jenkins et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,920,247; Balmforth, U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,747; Baker, U.S. Pat. No. 4,580,787; Wilson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,070,871; Jones, U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,826; and, Polgar, U.S. Pat. No. 7,708,279. However, these games still suffer from some potential drawbacks for some players including many of the same drawbacks of traditional chess such as the many sets of moves for the pawn, the pawn redemption rule, difficulty visualizing the moves of the knight, the bishops having access to too few spaces on the board, and the significant probability of ties. In addition, in most of the prior hexagonal chess variants, the king has access to even more spaces than traditional chess, making the king even harder to corner, and causing the end game to be more tedious and difficult to bring to a close.
Therefore, there is a need for a chess game and method of play which addresses one or more of the above problems.